CARE stands for "Comprehensive Audit Readiness Evaluation." CARE is not a replacement for a security audit, but is intended to happen before an audit so that protocol code becomes ready for future audit(s) to get a better security outcome from the process.
CARE reviews protocol code mainly for common security pitfalls and best-practices as related to smart contracts written in Solidity specifically for Ethereum blockchain or associated Layer-2 protocols. The pitfalls & best-practices are evaluated from (but not limited to) Secureum’s Security Pitfalls & Best Practices 101 and 201.
CARE aims to help identify such common pitfalls & best-practices so that they can be fixed before audit(s). This improves protocol's risk posture earlier in the design & development lifecycle and enables future audit(s) to focus more on deeper/harder application-specific and economic vulnerabilities. CARE helps smart contract security "shift-left" which is widely regarded as significantly improving security posture and outcome.
CARE reviews are performed by "CAREtakers" which includes a Secureum representative (who has a proven track-record of smart contract security expertise/experience) along with invited participants who are top-performing members of the Secureum community and aspiring smart contract security experts. They are invited based on their performance in Secureum RACEs.